The Forty Sixth Republic - online learning has killed the 'snow day'

[Staffdontblowitnow]

You are most welcome to this school staff support thread to get us through stressful times. It is meant for school staff only – a sort of room of requirement. Baiters, haters, goaders, and bashers can jog on somewhere else.

If you are NOT staff and just have a general education query please start your own thread.

You can play here if you are a member of one the following groups-

-ABBA - anti bashers and baiting association
-SWAB - school workers against bashers
-SWOT - school workers opposing teacherbashers
-STARS - schoolworkers together against ranting + slurs

Do not give the staffroom password just in case it attracts the wrong sort

Other requirements for staff room entry include the ability to find the staff room, the ability to find a clean mug in the staff room, knowledge of the photocopier codes, and the ability to sniff out where the booze is stashed - Thirsty Tuesdays, Fizz Fridays now in operation.

If you come with a stick to goad us then that is not allowed in the staffroom and you will receive a detention

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/explainers-55938837

What does Halfon mean by ‘Civil society’?

@Appuskidu

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/explainers-55938837

What does Halfon mean by ‘Civil society’?

From that article:

She adds: "Staffing summer schools will be a challenge because of burnout among teachers."

@TheHoneyBadger that sounds cool too. I was informed by partner when I was looking at something similar, that 'you'll just end up in LA middle management'. Which pissed on my fireworks!

I've already got a masters, I'm not sure it's sensible to basically cost our family £70k (lost earnings + fees) to do something a bit indulgent. We've already decided we're going to go and do another ski season in a couple of years.

I really want to do a phd.

I'd love to do a masters in something like that (both rules and honeys sound really interesting), but we can't realistically afford for me to stop working and earning. My salary pays the mortgage. If I was going to do it, it would have to be as well as teaching, and I really, truly do not have the brain space for that. I could possibly go part time, in terms of family finances. But there aren't any part time possibilities at my school because we already have 3 pt maths teachers and anyone asking for the same is told we have to wait til one of the pt staff leaves because we need so many ft teachers. By the time any of them leave I won't need the extra time because dd2 will be old enough not to need so much hands on parenting. So it looks like I'll stick with ft teaching at my current school, because in general I like it there, and am good at it.

I like the sound of your potential courses, Rule and Honey. I’d love to do an additional degree in textile arts no where near my current specialism When I was at uni, we had a retiree who was studying for fun. I’d love to do that when I retire. Just do a degree for the pleasure of learning, not the final outcome.

I have also discovered rubrics on GC as a way of giving WWW feedback. This has made me happier than it logically should.

@MrsHamlet

I can't see how they could compel us to do it. Vocation Mental health Won't somebody think of the children???

None of that shite will get me to cancel my flights!

Excuse my ignorance but I was baffled by all the talk of Ebacc and in particular with it being seen as favourable for disadvantaged kids? I've clearly missed that whole narrative/initiative. Can anyone fill me in or point me in the right direction please?

Who adds up the directed time?

Teaching, planning, admin, CPD, meetings. How does it all get added up?

Herdy I always notice the rubrics option when assigning work and wonder what that's all about I set everything with marks out of 5 predominately effort based. Apparently this is ridiculously over and above and I should only mark or comment on a piece of work once a fortnight I give everything an effort grade and a comment and remark and change grade if they resubmit.

What does Halfon mean by ‘Civil society’?

a) local council
b) charities
c) batshit groups like U4T
d) he has no idea but it’s a useful catch-all phrase
e) all of the above

I don't know, but we do get directed time budgets for the year (academy). I am pretty sure my employers are sailing close to the wind in terms of directed time already as they made us take on extra lunch duties this year, plus a little bit of additional teaching time some days due to staggered finishes AND they rescheduled a parents evening recently- all little things but they do add up.

Also, I know it's far to much to expect the government to take a long term view of education, but if they cause a lot of teacher burnout this year, when we were already in the middle of a retention crisis, who teaches the children in 3 or 4 years time?

That's going to be part of my plan herdy. I'm planning on gradually going more and more pt as I get closer to retirement (if I wait til one of my pt colleagues leave to retire I'll be about 50 when I can go down to 4 days). Then I'll start a pt degree in something fun, or just some online courses that aren't necessarily part of a degree, just for fun. I think something craft based. I crochet already, and have a GCSE in textiles so I can make (very) basic clothes with a sewing machine. I'm currently doing a geometric art course on Saturday mornings, and have signed up to do Viking spinning next week (the jorvik centre in York are doing a 2 hour online workshop and all materials are delivered a couple of days earlier). I have an awful lot of plans for when I retire, and when dd2 is independent. I'm not sure I'll ever have enough time to do all of them.

a kid has just sent me his work. It’s a picture of his laptop screen.

I’ve been through it 5 times with him how to send the work in. Running out of patience (he’s a sweet kid though).

@WhenSheWasBad

a kid has just sent me his work. It’s a picture of his laptop screen.

I’ve been through it 5 times with him how to send the work in. Running out of patience (he’s a sweet kid though).

Assuming secondary?

The very poor IT levels of some students really concerns me.

I really think we need to go back to teaching basic IT in schools!

Definitely need to teach basic IT skills at school. I have one who sends me a screenshot of him watching my video every day. No work, no photo, no documents, just that one screenshot.

Omg just googled to discover what tories mean by Ebacc.

5 core GCSEs. Ffs.

Definitely need to teach basic IT skills at school. I have one who sends me a screenshot of him watching my video every day. No work, no photo, no documents, just that one screenshot

love that.

That is the main thing we all need to learn from this. Our kids (yes I’m secondary) cannot use technology.

We should have loads of energy going into pupils basic IT skills. Instead we are expected to cram months of learning into 2 weeks of the summer holiday.

I've got one who keeps posting 'lean on the keyboard' shit in Chat, like rows and rows of EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, so I delete it and say 'perhaps do the work and type that instead?'. He replies with oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

He's this far away from being blocked.

It's truly dire, I was in with Keyworkers in about week two of this and sorted one out who had forgotten his homework login and didn't know how to check his school emails.

Most of my issues are that their tech at home it's just awful. I've just had one now say she couldn't hear me but she thinks it probably her phone. I've seen their phones, they all have smashed in screens, no wonder some of them are struggling.

I know the homework app doesn't show attachments to comments on my phone - and my phone is fairly new.

They sign up for the homework apps with their mums hotmail instead of their school email - and then they can't reset their password if they forget it, they set their passwords to stupid stuff they'll never remember. It drives me batty.

We really really need to get ours set up properly on the system from day one - but it just never happens. I suggest it every single year. This year we weren't even allowed to book IT rooms because COVID, so I couldn't even sort my own classes out.

They were talking about it as if it's some revolutionary new approach or qualification. It doesn't even make sense ffs. Those subjects are compulsory till 16 anyway for the most part (you can drop languages at the end of year 8 in our school).

How do they pedal such shite? Do they just assume people will nod sagely and none the wiser? Educational baccalaureate? Oh no, just the English baccalaureate which in fact is just 5 GCSEs in compulsory subjects which all schools were aiming for at a-c since the turn of the century when I trained.

Re Ebacc - I think people believe it to be some kind of actual qualification rather than a performance metric, it gets mixed up with the actual baccalaureate such as is done in France.

Yeah it fooled me cupboard. I dread to think how many dickheads were paid to come up with calling it that.

Ebacc is the middle buckets of progress 8 isnt it? Ugh the memory gives me a chill. Back to work soon.

Me too! Having recently been through y9 options it was news to me when it was casually thrown into the conversation.